Friday, April 30, 2010

Nick Clegg has all the staying power of a new toy that cannot withstand its initial popularity. “He is the new Fisher Price gizmo: it’s being pawed, smashed, and it’s starting to look a bit worse for wear. I don’t think he is going to make it through to election day in a pristine state.”

It looks like another 460 bureaucrats are for the chop.Sounds like a reasonable plan to me.

But apparently Labour State Services spokesperson Mr Robertson is not happy.Mr Robertson said National did not have a plan for developing "21st century" public services.

"Of course the public service needs to adapt and change, but this needs to be done by working with communities, businesses and public servants themselves rather than cutting services and staff," he said

His solution to the undoubted need to change, by "working with communities, businesses andpublic servants", has bullshit written all over it.

The first plan Labour would develop should they ever get back into power, would be to re-employ these people faster than Clark getting to a test match or Goff U turning the Axe the Tax bus.

I am happy to see $25mil+ ($80m as Adolf points out) shaved off government spending, while a real plan for surviving this century is worked out.(I don't use the word surviving lightly. I hear it every day from friends and customers)

Something along the lines of providing only what we need, at a price we can actually afford.

The Tories are in a good position to get an overall majority despite the surge in support for the Lib dems based on current polls. Using the 2005 notional results based on boundary changes data provided at UK Polling Report I believe the Tories can get as low as 35% providing Labour is 29.5% or less based on a seat by seat assessment of the swing impact. I have based this assessment on Conservatives not gaining any Lib Dem seats, Others (SNP, Independent etc) holding. I would upload the spreadsheet but blogger does not seem to allow that.

Labour are currently polling only 27% according to UKPollingReport. That is before the disastrous B.I.G.O.T. comments. Brown Is Gone On Thursday!

It gets more interesting though if you look seperately at the Conservative-held LibDem targets, and the Labour-held LibDem targets. As Julian Glover rightly warns in his commentary, only 15 of these seats are Labour held so the sample size isn’t huge and some caution is necessary, but it appears to show that the Lib Dem advance in marginals is wholly concentrated in Labour held ones: taken separately, responses in Con-v-LD seats shows no discernable swing to the Liberal Democrats, but a swing of about 8 points in Lab-v-LD seats. That would result in the Lib Dems taking about 28 or so seats from Labour, but few if any from the Conservatives. If this finding is at all accurate, it will be key to the result

I have read elsewhere that the Lib Dem vote is holding up in Tory target seats currently held by Lib Dem. This is certainly consistent with my own involvement which suggests we are extremely confident of taking Reading West from Labour whilst Zac Goldsmith in Richmond is less likely to win against the incumbent Lib Dem Margaret Kramer.

So a week out I think the media are busy slamming Labour and are not particularly open at recognising the likelihood of a Conservative majority. There is more money for the media in talking up a hung parliament.

Why, of why, would anyone be stupid enough to set up a live media lapel mike during an election campaign walk-about?

As he went to get into his car, Mr Brown told her: "Very nice to meet you, very nice to meet you."

But off camera, and not realising he still had a Sky News microphone pinned to his shirt, he was heard to tell an aide: "That was a disaster - they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? It's just ridiculous..."

Asked what she had said, he is heard to reply: "Ugh everything! She's just a sort of bigoted woman that said she used to be Labour. I mean it's just ridiculous. I don't know why Sue brought her up towards me."

Reminds Adolf of a particularly bumptious Presbyterian minister who had some unsavoury remarks to make in his office five minutes before morning worship. He forgot he was broadcasting.

HomePaddock has a post on the successful resource consent application for a new irrigation scheme in South Canterbury, called Hunter Downs. Her post is all pretty straight forward until you get to this gem, tucked away toward the end.

There have also been social benefits. For the first time since the ag-sag of the 80s farmers’ adult children have returned home for work. There were eight houses on our road before the scheme was launched, now there are 13.

This is the sort of thing which is anathema to the Luddites who would have most of the country depopulated if they could.

Good Bye ETS sings Dr Smith while John Kixote continues to croon Good Buy ETS.

At long last it looks as though the insanely dopey Emmissions Trading Scheme will get the arse.

The Government said yesterday it would probably ditch the rest of the emissions trading scheme as scheduled beyond 2013 if its major trading partners did not have schemes as well.

It's an interesting move. Dr Smith plays to the home audience and PM Key addresses the international wankers who still believe the junk science of the warmeniser extremists.

Dr Smith said the Australian Government announcement was no surprise and that it was not the only important market.

He said of 38 countries with obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, 29 had an ETS in place.

In fact only two of them, Norway and Switzerland, of the 29 are not members of the European Union scheme.

I'd be interested to see Dr Smith's list of the twenty nine countries he alleges already have instituted their own version of the economic disaster. Methinks they will include few of our serious trading partners.

Is this a case where bloggers can quietly take a little credit for bringing pressure to bear?

Remember Labour? You know who I mean - govt types, a few years back now. Everyone hated them because they were always deciding you weren't behaving how they'd like you to, and thinking up ways to punish you for it. We gave 'em the boot in the end, because we'd had enough of them treating us like poorly-behaved children in need of SuperNanny. Yeah, that was them. Wankers.

Remember how fucked up they were? They'd pull shit like increasing the taxes on smoking and drinking, despite existing taxes already covering the negative effects of those activities, just because you're smoking and drinking more than they'd like you to. Or they'd try and restrict the supply of tobacco and alcohol, and the advertising of it, because you obviously can't be trusted with it like they can. Never bothered trying to enforce the laws we already had to prevent people misbehaving, just thought up new ones to add to the pile.

As I pointed out here, there is stacks of regulation. But it seems that's not the problem. No. The problem is that investors' money fell "through the cracks between regulators".

Maybe the XT network was down when the Companies Office tried to phone the Securities Commission to see if Bridgecorp's audited prospectus, checked by lawyers and regulated by the Securities Commission, was correct.

Sure, neither Labour nor Winston did anything to stop the elderly in this country losing the "thick end of $3 billion of savings".

But no matter how hard you try, you cannot save people from themselves, despite successive governments trying their hardest to do so.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

As a commonwealth citizen I am entitled to vote in the UK General election. I registered for postal voting and received my paper this morning. I voted for Adam Afriye, Conservative, Windsor and posted it back within about 30 minutes of receipt so I count myself the first amongst many to vote for change in this country.

farrar and slater via danyl seem to find the MIA Born Free video funny. farrar says "I agree it is a wonderful vision of the future, that we can aspire to."

I watched it with a growing sense of concern, then disgust and revulsion, waiting for some kind of redemption. But there was nothing. That clip takes what was a kind of socially acceptable racial prejudice to a whole new level. I am not going to link it, you know where kiwiblog and whaleoil are.

What if they were fat, black, muslim, jewish or mentally ill? Ah, that would be different? Why? That clip with one or more of those categories would be funny or acceptable to some group of people around the world.

It is already "OK" to bully ginger haired kids in school. Will it stop being funny when a child takes their own life as a result of being bullied?

Or will it stop being funny when some of those limited intelligence bullies grow up and believe violence towards red heads is socially acceptable?

Or will it stop being funny when some of them join the police and believe brutality is acceptable?

Or will it only stop being funny when a dictator somewhere actually rounds up and executes red headed people for their crime?

Or was it never really funny at all but simply an excuse for small minded people to display prejudice towards a minority in order to big themselves up at the expense of others.

I used to believe that "teasing" of "gingas" was innocent humour until I came across a family of red heads whilst out canvassing for the Conservatives. The son had been bullied at school and when the parents took it up with the teacher they were told he should do something about the colour of his hair. Something he was born with. So the playground taunts extend to the reality of life. I asked myself where does the prejudice stop?

Take the easy out and accuse me of a sense of humour failure. I don't get the "in joke". No. I reject the idea that killing other humans for something they are born with and have no control over is in any way socially acceptable, even as "humour". There is a fine line between humour, intolerance and offence. The South Park deliberately offensive humour does not target any one group in particular but simply plays back human flaws and insecurities. It is fair minded in targeting everyone. The ten most hilariously offensive South Park scenes (in google ranking opinion) are listed here. This is the most offensive one.

Randy Marsh's Wrong Answer on Wheel of Fortune: This was the most brilliant opening scene in South Park history. The producers were smart in not giving away any part of this episode in the previews. Randy Marsh is in the final round of Wheel of Fortune. The category is "people who annoy you". It is seven letters long and after receiving the letters "r", "s", "t", "l", and "e", it is spelt out _ _ _ _ E R S. Randy guesses B, G, N, and an "O" to reveal N _ G G E R S. The audience looks on with blank faces as the black cameraman has an angry look on his face. Randy becomes nervous and starts to say how he knows the answer, but shouldn't say it. Eventually, with time running out, he exclaims eagerly in anticipation of winning a lot of money "NIGGERS!". Time runs out, Vanna (looking very ashamed) walks over to the puzzle to reveal that the answer was actually naggers. Extremely funny and genius opening scene to a great South Park episode.

Watch that red head video and compare it with the humour described above and see if you can spot the difference.

Frustrated by the climate change conference in December, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is quietly moving away from her goal of a binding agreement on limiting climate change to 2 degrees Celsius. She has also sent out signals at the EU level that she no longer supports the idea of Europe going it alone.

To receive emails from John Boscawen specific to the ETS campaign, including ways you can help us to have the ETS deferred, email johnboscawen.mp@parliament.govt.nz with “subscribe to ETS emails” in the subject line.

I just read the story in the Herald about the 160 defense personnel who are unable to make it back for the funerals of the three serivcemen killed in the chopper crash. Apparently it is proving dificult to change flights from Turkey to get them all back in time.My question. With some supplementaries.Why are so many servicemen (and women I presume) travelling to Galipoli?Are they funding themselves or is it funded by the military?If it is funded, do they normally have such a large presence?

I do have issues with the military in this country, based mainly around the fact that they used a VC recipient for publicity and successive governments have neglected them and bought armoured personnel carriers that are useless, boats that make people ill and are unsafe and we have an airforce that seems to strugle getting past Brisbane without a breakdown. However I would not want anybody to think I am showing any disrespect to the personnel of our armed forces. Because none is intended.Just wondering why such a large group has gone.

Readers may be surprised to learn the ASB Community Trust is a regular funder of the left's flagship anti Amerikan, anti military, anti business, anti sovereign nation outfit, The Foundation for Peace Studies Aotearoa NZ otherwise known as The Peace Foundation.

This outfit is a regular supper at the ASB trough. During the last three years, it was been handed over $125,000:-

2009...............$50,000

2008...............$30,000

2007...............$45,168

Some of its key people include:-

A vice president of the CTU, an ex head of Greenpeace NZ, a senior office bearer in the Values Party and The Greens, a ex Labour Party president and soon to be unemployed city mayor, a Labour appointed flunky to the UN and several proponents of World Government and a World Court.

Funnily enough, the Companies Office does not list the personnel of this incorporated society.

The last set of accounts was lodged in 2007 and shows income of $790k including grants of $73k.Adolf is intrigued to know how this outfit maintains its tax free status when its accounts show little evidence of charitable activity and when no accounts have been filed for the last two years. One wonders to whom it paid out $350k worth of 'wages' and for what work.

In 2007 the Foundation gained some $390k revenue from 'contract income' but shows only $116k unspecified contract expenses.

It is be based at 29 Princes St Auckland which appears to be very close to the Auckland branch of the Labour Party. Adolf would be extremely interested to know how much of The Foundations' funds (and the ASB Trust's funds) travelled the short distance from the Foundation to the Labour Party. There were some $57k worth of donations.

Adolf wonders if the ASB ever checks up to see how these funds are expended. It's about time they started looking.

Phil In was on Newstalk ZB last night with Larry Williams and was asked what his position was in regards to Maori seats on the Auckland Council. Williams said "..because I read the speech and couldn't find any mention of it".

Goff responded "Oh yes, it's in there".

Williams said "Really? I couldn't see it."

Goff then bumbled his way through an answer that supported racist seats on the council. But he lied with regards to it being in the speech.

While skimming ABC news today Adolf came across this piece which immediately caused eyebrows to go up.

A Federal Environment Department insider has told tonight's Four Corners program that senior bureaucrats were warned about insulation worker deaths under a scheme rolled out in New Zealand in 2007, but safety issues were considered "of less importance than job creation".

Maybe I was asleep in 2007 and 2008 but I don't remember any publicity about people dying as a direct result of kindly Helen's Killer Government and its generosity to her cold and shivering hordes of low income welfare dependent indentured Labour voters.

DENNIS D’ARCY, INSULATION COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA & NZ: Peter said well you know if, ah, if ah, foil insulation is included in this programme, ah, you should be aware that, ah, there has been, um, some fatalities in New Zealand and this needs to be taken into account.

WENDY CARLISLE: The minutes of the meeting clearly reveal...

(Voiceover reading from the report)

"Peter Ruz provided an example in New Zealand, where a similar program had to be suspended because three people electrocuted themselves."

Did Clark's Killer Gummint programme allow for DIYers (later to be DIEers) to obtain a subsidy to insulate their own homes?

Monday, April 26, 2010

I have held off commenting on the global child rapists corporation. Mainly because I do not really care, in much the same way as I do not care about the climate, my health, my neighbours, rugby and pretty much everything else these days.But, hypocrisy is as hypocrisy does and the latest front page of the Daily Hate Mail has stirred me from the comfort of my bean bag to share a few tortured thoughts with you all.

Let us look for a moment at the worlds oldest and most evil criminal conspiracy.At its head they have a geriatric ex Nazi who is without a doubt tarnished by his youth and forever damned for his aiding and abetting after the fact of animlas who preyed on children for sex.Personally I blame the French.It was a French pope who decreed that priests must be celibate and not take wives. Not for any godly reasons but because those randy fuckers were marrying and breeding and as part of their vulture like duties were encouraged to hang around the nearly departed to ensure people left their posessions to the church. They then left it to their families. Rome was not happy to share and decided that it should come to the church. Thus setting us on a path of depravity that has seen us arrive at this point where the Roman Catholic church is squirming on a pole.The plain truth is that these paedophiles and poofters have preyed on the weak and young for hundreds of years and no amount of blaming; Jews, poofs, media, British foreign office will allow you to wriggle off the hook.The only reason they are not the most evil religion currently is because they do not strap explosives to retarded members of their flock to blow people up.

Note to AF, Milt and Gooner. Sorry I did not make dinner. Will call tomorrow. Today has been a nightmare.

Australia's mining industry has called on the Rudd government to respond carefully to the Henry tax review, warning that a new super-tax on the sector could undermine the nation's economic recovery.

The industry faces a nervous wait until Sunday's release of the Henry review, amid growing speculation that it will recommend a new national resource rent tax, in addition to the various state-based royalty systems already in place.

Andrew Michelmore, chief executive of China Minmetals' Australian arm, Minerals and Metals Group, said the industry supported tax reform but not a tax grab.

"The worry is that the speculation is all around a tax grab (which) can have an impact on investment, particularly in changing the mood on foreign investment in Australia," he said

And:

The aluminium industry has rejected claims it should not get compensation worth $10.5 billion under Australia's proposed emissions trading scheme, and that aluminium smelting will prove marginal or unviable in this country...

Australian smelters competed against the Chinese, not European or North American smelters, which may use nuclear power or hydro, and a shift of capacity offshore - ''an appalling outcome for the Australian economy'' - would not necessarily result in lower greenhouse emissions, he said.

I love seeing canned fruit with ridiculously high sugar contents defined as healthy.

The following McDonald's burgers contain cheese:

CheeseburgerQuarter PounderBig MacFilet 'O' FishMcChickenMcFeast

These will be exempt from GST under nanny's bill, and therefore more affordable to those who Nanny is trying to protect. Don't get me started on the amount of cheese on a Domino's Pizza.

But the best part of the bill is the exemption for lean meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, nuts, seeds, and legumes. We could call this the Euro exemption.

All the rich pricks who eat at fancy restaurants like Euro (on Auckland's waterfront) will now be charged less for their meat dishes, seafood dishes, dishes that contain eggs, etc. Of course if a dish contains cheese and poultry and eggs, (like a chicken filo wrap) then said rich pricks will be getting even richer by foregoing 12.5% of the bill.

Matt McCarten is the reason why I will never pay to read the Herald.Week after week of left wing tripe dished up.And yesterday's effort rates amongst the worst.

This coward seems to think that freedom and free speech come from "rights".How wrong he is.

His ability to get up in the morning and express his point of view is not only the end result of 95 years of fighting and sacrifice, but thousands of years of toil, warfare, defeats and victories.Our ancestors only ever did what they thought was the right thing at the time - fight or be conquered.I am glad they chose to fight. And sad that many made the ultimate sacrifice.Their brave actions reflect the essence of the human spirit.

To slag them off and belittle them now is about as low as you can go as a human.

Maybe one day McCarten will write an article expressing horror at the needless deaths of the millions murdered, unarmed, in the hands of the Stalin andLenin's of this world.All in the name of creating their perfect world.But I won't be holding my breath.

War delivers freedom.Socialism only ever delivers death and slavery.

In 100 years, on ANZAC Day, we will still remember.And McCarten will thankfully be long forgotten.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

SST journalist Jonathon Marshall appears to have been given the 'celebrities' bar round.

Fresh from his triumphant expose of the North Shore's greatest ever idiot, he is featured today - listing the long list of misdemeanours committed by the Herne Bay miscreant, Matthew 'don't you know who I am?' Ridge.

The funniest and most shameful gem is the news that not too long ago Ridge was chased down and caught in a foot race by a lumbering fat old copper!

And a year earlier the former All Black was arrested after acheckpoint incident in which he stopped his car and ran away. Ridge was chasedon foot, caught and pepper-sprayed.

Dutch-speaking Liberals, one of Leterme's five coalition parties, quit the Cabinet, accusing their Francophone counterparts of blocking a deal to break up the Brussels-area district the constitutional court ruled illegal in 2003.

In 2003 the constitutional court ruled the bilingual Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde voting district illegal as it violates the separation of Dutch- and French-language regions. It comprises officially bilingual Brussels but also 20-odd towns in Dutch-speaking Flanders around the capital.

Dutch-speaking politicians have long complained the district lets Francophones – who have moved from Brussels into Dutch-speaking suburbs – vote for French-speaking parties in the capital.

Leterme's alliance of Christian Democrats, Liberals and Socialists – split into Dutch and French-speaking camps – agreed to resolve the voting district issue by Easter 2010, a deadline that was missed, leading to the government's collapse.

"We are the end of our rope," Guy Vanhengel, a Flemish Liberal, said yesterday. "I think that efforts to come to a negotiated settlement are not succeeding."

"They cannot possibly pass the government's tests for good regulatory and tax policy."

"It seems the Commission wants to take New Zealand back to the days of punitive excise taxation and nanny state regulation of shop trading hours, closing times for bars and the purchase age.

"We have been there and done that with alcohol policy and it didn't work," Mrs Roy said.

Since liberalisation that commenced in 1989, consumption per head has declined significantly and there has been no increase in hazardous drinking. The vast majority of New Zealanders have a responsible attitude to alcohol.

After the Nick Clegg win of the first leaders debate the editorial line of each of the UK National newspapers is instructive. Over the next few weeks they will have an impact on how their readership votes. I checked out the first visible story online the day of the second leaders debate.

The left Mirror and Guardian are simply pointless stories while the rest are anti Lib Dem, I make that 5 anti Lib Dem 2 pointless anti Tory and 1 pro Lib Dem.

In a move designed to defuse criticism in tonight's leaders' television debate that the Tories have allied themselves with extremists in the EU, Cameron has revealed that the shadow environment secretary, Nick Herbert, will attend a gay rights march in Warsaw in July.

Nick Clegg has claimed that the British people have ‘a more insidious cross to bear’ than Germany over the Second World War.In an astonishing attack on our national pride, the Liberal Democrat leader said we suffered from ‘delusions of grandeur’ and a ‘misplaced sense of superiority’ over having defeated the horrors of Nazism.

In the same week that Ian Wishart blows the whistle on the tawdry sordid goings on within Clark's Labour administration (also Goff's and King's), National reveals that Labour is desperately trying to give itself a make-over.

If one takes with a grain of salt some of the more lurid claims of the child involved in this latest media ignored scandal of a scandal laden Labour government, there remains a hard core of factual detail which calls into question the judgement, morals and ethics of Labour. It is clear the parliamentary wing of the party not only condoned but actually contrived to have a vulnerable thirteen year old youngster (a) given the run of the parliamentary precinct, (b) plied with alcohol and (c) exposed to the unspeakable evil of left wing politicians.

Today the story started to grow legs with an intrepid but juvenile Herald chappiefailing to ask the right questions.

You'd think Mr Bennett (whom Adolf has not met) would learn to ask the obvious and learn something about English grammar to boot.

QV says Lace Bark sold the property last year for $4.82 million.

Lace Bark boss Lloyd Cundy said the deal was "a normal commercial transaction". He was not aware of anything unusual in his dealings with ACC's property team.

"I'm a developer, I'll develop where I'm needed and that's what I've done. I've moved on and it's as simple as that."

He could not recall whom he had sold the building to.

If he has bothered to phone the local council and get a QV report he might have established a few interesting facts which no doubt will exercise some minds at the SFO and should be raising a few eyebrows over at IRD.

Why was a property valued in September 2009 at $2.55m sold at that same time for over $4.8m? Was income tax paid on this apparent remarkable capital gain?

Why was it bought by a company 100% owned by a Rotorua based charitable energy trust whose official objects contain not the slightest reference to owning commercial property?

To what purpose are the untaxed profits of this commercial property owning charitable trust put?

If a slow moving dumb old blogger can find out all these things in a few minutes on the web and phone, what the hell do reporters do all day long?

Oh yeah, Mr Bennett. What you should have said was:-

"He could not recall to whom he had sold the building."

Most developers I know can remember to whom they sold a $2.5m building for $4.8m less than a year ago.

Which several years happen to be those during which Labour was running riot, turning ACC into an extension of the welfare state. The civil servants would have taken their moral lead from the government of the day.

Adolf suggests interested bloggers should be looking for (a) evidence of Labour Party membership and or activism on the part of these gummint funded serious fraudsters and (b) evidence of their ill gotten gains finding their way into Labour Party bank accounts.

Securities Act, which includes a myriad of provisions regarding prospectus and statements made in them.

The criminal law/police, which includes fraud, theft by appropriation and other ancillary offences.

The Serious Fraud Office (see above).

Standard and Poors ratings on said finance companies.

Auditors and their reports on said companies.

Common law torts including deception, negligence and negligent misstatement.

There are more - feel free to add them in the comments.

The best way to finish this post is with this comment from Brent Sheather:

The answer to this problem is not regulation. It needs to be driven by the investing public - demanding realistic annual fees from their advisers and threatening to leave the money in the bank as per Warren Buffett's good advice of April 2004.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I know you're waiting for it, so here it is - the definitive post in defence of the U-turning cop.

Chill. I won't defend him too much. I think he should, and will be, charged with dangerous driving causing death. It's possible a manslaughter charge could be laid. At the very best, it will be careless driving causing death.

But there are some mitigating circumstances.

The motorcyclist that the officer was chasing was reportedly travelling 154 km/h. That's almost categorised as dangerous driving. If that is the case, then the officer had a duty to chase him.

The next question is whether a U turn should have been performed, especially on that stretch of road. The answer is plainly no. U turns are notoriously dnagerous manoeuvres and that part of the road seemd particulalry narrow, meaning a three point turn was required which would have kept the patrol car in the path of oncoming traffic for much longer.

Yet the option I heard someone discuss on the news tonight was that the officer could have driven 150 metres up the road and driven into a side road to perform the turn.

Forget it.

At 154 km/h the motorcyclist is almost a kilometre away by the time you get back to the chase. So the only real option is to complete the U turn. Tragically it was the wrong decision.

Police officers should never fight their training and instincts when faced with such situations. They are trained to catch people breaking the law. You can argue until you're blue in the face whether they should bother with speeding motorcyclists, but as I say 154 km/h is pretty quick, and if you ignore dangerous driving where do you draw the line?

And I don't doubt it was 154 km/h because I am sure the officer got the speed on radar and this will be the justification for completing the U turn. The PR thus far suggests so. But every km/h below 154 km/h, the justification diminishes.

The very sad thing in all of this is that the speeding motorcyclist was the dead man's good friend. It really will be tragic if his excessive speed was a causing factor in the accident.

Labour leader Phil Goff says Prime Minister John Key is a good politician, but he believes the public will tire of him.

If you wait long enough, yes the public will tire of him. Eventually. That's human nature. It's also called hope. It seems hope is all Labour has right now.

I was talking to a parliamentary insider about 9 months prior to the last election. This person was imbedded in the walls of the Beehive. At this time, Key and National were plenty ahead of Labour. Clark seemed nonchalant. Not fussed.

Her strategy, as Labour's chief political strategist, was to give Key the longest honeymoon he had ever seen and then bring him back to life, with a thud.

To Wright, this is apparently not sticking the knife in and twisting it, it's "talking up the Prime Minister." At this point the phrase "The stupid! The stupid! It burns!" was passing through my mind, but on reflection it all makes perfect sense.

To the juvenile airheads reporting for TV news, Goff's statements genuinely were expressions of praise. It's not that they're stupid, it's just that for them, creating good photo opportunities and saying what the public wants to hear are the acme of excellence in politics - there is nothing more.

All of which is good reason not to get your political news from the TV...

The appetite of Dr Cullen and this Government for more taxes is legendary, 43 new and increased levies and taxes have been introduced. The latest is the carbon tax. It will add 6c per litre to the price of petrol, 7c per litre to diesel, 6% to all power bills and put the price of coal and gas up by 9%.

This week National launches the axecarbontax.co.nz campaign. The new finely balanced Parliament gives us the opportunity to send the carbon tax the way of the fart tax.

The madness of the Government’s new carbon tax is that New Zealanders will be the only people in the world paying it. It will drive up the costs of living and undermine the competitiveness of New Zealand business for negligible environmental gain.

Labour Ministers may take pride in being toasted at International Climate conferences for being so bold and brave, but there is no justification for New Zealand going out in the cold by itself on this issue.

New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions made up only 0.4% of the global total and on a per capita basis our emissions are half those of countries like Australia and the United States. We are the only Southern Hemisphere country with binding legal obligations under Kyoto and giants like China and India have got off scot free.

The carbon tax will cost the Nelson and Marlborough regions $25 million a year. We are particularly hard hit because industries like fishing, farming and forestry are big fuel consumers. The tax is particularly insulting to the forestry sector and those farmers who have woodlots because the Government has taken the carbon credits for themselves. Only a Labour Government would have the audacity to impose a carbon credit on the forester for his diesel use but steal the carbon credits from his growing forest.*

A further concern of the carbon tax is its impact on inflation, interest rates and the exchange rate. It will add to the costs of fuel and power and these flow right through the economy to basics like food. This puts pressure on inflation, which in turn drives up interest rates and the kiwi dollar. The Government’s carbon tax is a classic example of the way the Government is making things tougher for the productive exporting sector. It just makes their policies of 2006 being the ‘Year of Exports’ an exercise in shallow spin.

Dear Nick - why say this when you never meant it? Absolutely none of it.

Monday, April 19, 2010

This is priceless. From commentator NZFP over at The Standard, who sarcastically, yet correctly, asks Marty G to explain a few statements made over the unpronounceable Iceland volcanic eruption:

Hey Marty,

You said “and actually has a cooling effect, slightly counteracting climate change.” I’m confused, isn’t the cooling effect a change in climate in itself? Or by “climate change” do you mean Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW)? If you mean AGW would you please say AGW because a cooling of the planet due to a downturn in solar activity is by definition “Climate Change” as well.

You said “Volcanic eruptions also emit carbon dioxide” can you tell me how much we should tax Iceland for all the CO2 and other pollutants their Volcano is pouring into the atmosphere? Bear in mind that Iceland just voted to kick out the banks as well as Gordon Brown for bankrupting them so they probably don’t have much money.

ScienceDaily (June 26, 2008) — A research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has uncovered evidence of explosive volcanic eruptions deep beneath the ice-covered surface of the Arctic Ocean. Such violent eruptions of splintered, fragmented rock–known as pyroclastic deposits — were not thought possible at great ocean depths because of the intense weight and pressure of water and because of the composition of seafloor magma and rock.

The ScienceDaily article reports “that a tremendous blast of CO2 was released into the water column during the explosive eruption” – considering this, who should be paying all the carbon tax for all these CO2 events occuring from erupting undersea volcanos?

Actually can anybody tell me how many Volcanos are erupting under the sea? Does anybody know? If nobody know’s how many volcanic events are occuring around the world, how do we know how much CO2 is being released into the atmosphere and consequently how do we know what percentage of that CO2 is due to our labour? I thought the Science was Settled so surely the IPCC knows where every single volcano is on the planet and not only that the IPCC know’s how much CO2 is being released and the IPCC knows that all of the volcanic CO2 released by every volcano on the planet is inconsequential compared to our labour.

I guess the next time Ruapehu or White Island erupts all us Kiwi’s need to dig deep into our wallets and cough up for Nobel Peace laureate and all around good guy Al Gore, the UN and the IPCC.

The KPMGs of this world seem to be in a little world of their own where 'corporate' is good.

This latest gloom mongering bullshit from the upper echelons of Auckland's highest agricultural sky scrapers fails to take into account the plain old common sense which was passed onto Adolf by a grizzled old Farm Management lecturer in 1969. His words still ring in my ears.

"Corporate farms are the current fad. They are being set up all over the world but they will never out perform the ordinary New Zealand family farm. The one unassailable competitive advantage the family farm possesses in attitude. It takes a personal stake in the business to motivate a farmer to get out of bed at 0200 and go to check that his cows are not dying of bloat."

In the forty years since that time, Adolf has seen and dealt with many corporate farms in Australia and New Zealand. They all started off with a hiss and a roar and they ALL failed for the same reason. The people actually doing the work had the attitude of employees, not owners. Oh, the fact that poor management decisions were taken by directors who had their fingers in all sorts of other pies contributed too.

Well, it's not that long ago that the whole of Eastern Europe was a collective called the Soviet Union, the largest scale corporate farm ever. And if you want to see commentary on Uruguay, just ask HomePaddock why she and her husband sold their shares.

One of the Britain's biggest fresh fruit importers said business had ground to a halt. Anthony Pile, chairman of Blue Skies, said the company was losing £100,000 a day.

And:

British and Irish scheduled airlines are losing up to £28 million ($60.6 million) a day, with the total bill to European carriers hitting US$200 million ($282 million), according to the International Air Transport Association.

More than three-quarters of flights were lost yesterday across Europe, with barely 5000 taking off or landing, the Eurocontrol air traffic agency said. This compares with a typical 22,000.

Around Europe, 73 transatlantic flights landed yesterday morning, less than a third of the 300 that would normally arrive. The situation deteriorated from Saturday, when 10,400 flights made it out of the normal 28,000.

There will plenty of line dancing and spirulina drinking going on today. I also heard on the wireless that GDP across Europe has been slashed by at least 2%.

Even Neville Chamberlain had enough brains to refrain from publicly complaining that Britain's air force in 1939 was in no state to take on the mighty Luftwaffe.

However Ms Dipstick, the person in charge of policing all the rogues who have fleeced millions of their millions, now finds it necessary to pontificate about the deficiencies in the very regulations she so dismally failed to administer.

"They're not good enough for it at the moment.

"Investors in Hong Kong and in Singapore have a better regulatory framework of managed funds than we do, and they won't recognise our managed funds framework......."

...........Diplock told Q+A that inadequate regulation was a factor in finance company collapses which have put more than $6 billion of investors' money at risk.

"There are many, many factors that led to the finance company collapses, and the regulatory desert was one of them.

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I think we certainly, looking back, could say we needed a better regulatory framework at the time."

She cited a lack of resources as a reason why it has taken so long to take action against finance companies and their directors.

"It's clear that the commission is under- resourced, there's no doubt about that.

In a nauseating display of self serving self righteousness, she resorts to the time honoured excuse of all failures - the blame game. The tools were no good and she didn't have enough money.

Adolf has some news for this jet setting Lady Jane.

The MAJOR factor in the whole fiasco was the failure of her Securities Commission to robustly use many powers it has always had at its disposal. She is a national disgrace, as is the idiot who interviewed her on Q and A and failed to ask the hard questions.

As Brown is Labour's candidate for Auckland's top job, he will be worried to see his leader and his party with little support. That'll translate into little support for him in a few months as Aucklanders realise a vote for Len is a vote for Sue Bradford and a Labour-led Auckland.

Question: Why didn't the people from GE Money actually phone at least one in five of their proposed lenders to check their bona fides?

Answer: Because GE Money was just as greedy for business as the little crooks from Tasman Mortgages and the big crooks from their parent company BlueChip.

One of the oldest tricks in the book is for the broker to take away a blank form and then fill in the details later. How convenient. In this case, false occupation details were used to avoid the rejection the crooked broker knew would result from inclusion of the true occupation - 'retired.'

Adolf has first hand knowledge of a few other little tricks used by the little crooks at Tasman. He overheard one day the chief little crook instructing the new chum little crook on the manner in which the forms should be completed.

"Don't ever say they have two cars, even if they have two or more. That will reduce the amount you can get approved. Always fill in 'one car.'

In the life insurance industry, where a broker fills out an application in his own writing (and sometimes there are genuine reasons why this is done***) responsible insurers send a copy of the completed application to the client with a verification request before any policy is issued. You see, legally, the application form, along with the policy document, comprises the contract between the parties.

*** You'd be surprised how many wealthy young farmers are extremely dyslexic or in fact almost unable to write anything other than their names.